Press Release

AUSTIN, Texas, --January 5, 1999-- Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing, today announced that Scan and Deliver, a component introduced in Norton AntiVirus 5.0, is successfully responding at lightning speed to an exponential increase in submissions of suspicious files. The Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC) has received more than five times the submissions in December 1998 than in the same period last year and has responded with an analysis to more than 80 percent of those submissions in less than 24 hours.

Using Norton AntiVirus' new Scan and Deliver feature, users can instantly and easily submit potentially infected files to the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC) for analysis and quickly receive a response and/or fix. SARC responds to submitted files either automatically, with existing virus definitions, or after a technician has analyzed the file. Either way, response is fast, say reviewers and consumers, even with a five-fold increase in submissions last month.

SARC has designed an intelligent automation system to handle virus submissions through Scan and Deliver. Even with a significant increase in the frequency of submissions, this automated system has the capability to handle the existing level of new viruses, and more. This allows SARC to respond to customers much faster than anyone else in the market. While the competition promises automation, Symantec is delivering it. This is the first step towards implementing Symantec's Digital Immune System. The Digital Immune System combines Symantec's award-winning products with neural network technology from IBM to help customers keep their systems up and running.

"[A] notable new feature in NAV 5.0 is Scan and Deliver," wrote Barry Simon in his First Looks article on Norton AntiVirus 5.0 published Aug. 20, 1998, in PC Magazine Online. "What makes this service noteworthy is that in many cases the process is automated, so the response can be quick; in our test, turnaround time was about 30 minutes."

According to a SARC report, approximately 1,545 Norton AntiVirus customers submitted suspect files to SARC in December compared to only 297 customers during the same month last year. In addition, since the release of Norton AntiVirus 5.0, SARC has found 336 new viruses - 128 in October alone - and has received 6,029 requests for file analysis, more than 68 percent of which were resolved automatically. SARC technicians addressed the remaining file analysis issues in less than 17 hours on average.

The report's findings are evidence that virus-related problems are plaguing more and more users. Fifty-three percent of the suspicious files that users submitted included one or more viruses, five percent of which included one or more new viruses. According to submissions recorded this year between August 10 and December 31, more macro viruses and Trojan Horses were submitted than any other type of virus, at 28 percent and 48 percent, respectively. File viruses accounted for 20 percent of submissions, while multi-partite viruses accounted for three percent.

After spending weeks of work and a significant amount of money trying to use a competitor's anti-virus software to eradicate a problem on her new computer system, Kay Butcher, from Alpine, Calif., switched to Norton AntiVirus 5.0. She then quarantined the questionable file and used Scan and Deliver to send it to SARC for evaluation. The response, she says, was "complete and immediate. They identified the virus and told me their web site already had that virus definition on file." Butcher then simply downloaded the latest virus definitions using the Norton AntiVirus LiveUpdate feature.

"SARC and LiveUpdate are as good as it gets if you really want the most up-to-the-minute protection," Butcher said. "If you're not using the best software with the latest definitions, you're just wasting your time and increasing the possibility of disaster. In my experience, if you're not using Norton AntiVirus, you may as well not use anything."

Bill Leeper, from Newport, Ore., also appreciates Scan and Deliver. "Because I always run Norton AntiVirus in the background, I can now quarantine any file it suspects is infected," he said. "Then, with Scan and Deliver, I can turn around and send it to SARC for analysis. It takes all the guesswork as well as the wait out of dealing with viruses."

Symantec AntiVirus Research Center
The Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC) is the industry's largest dedicated team of virus experts. With offices located in the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands, the sun never sets on SARC. The center's mission is to provide swift, global responses to computer virus threats, proactively research and develop technologies that eliminate such threats, and educate the public on safe computing practices. As new computer viruses appear, SARC develops identification and detection for these viruses, and provides either a repair or delete operation, thus keeping users protected against the latest virus threats.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing. Symantec products and solutions help make users productive and keep their computers safe and reliable anywhere and anytime. Symantec offers a broad range of solutions and is acclaimed as a leader in both customer satisfaction and product brand recognition. Symantec is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC. More information on the company and its products can be obtained at www.symantec.com.

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